


Delete This Recording

by E_Salvatore



Series: Nobody Needs to Know [3]
Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: F/M, as in 'it hasn't happened yet but the show's probably gonna go in a completely different direction', missing epilogue from 204, probably canon-divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 22:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6169459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/E_Salvatore/pseuds/E_Salvatore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 10:37 when Strand texts her, 11:04 when he knocks on her front door and 2:04 when he asks her to come back to bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Delete This Recording

It’s 10:37 when her phone lights up with an incoming text.

Doctor Bernier’s voice rings clear as a bell in her head: _no bright screens after eight_ , and a few other guidelines about using her phone at night. But the bright glow of the screen seems to light up her entire room, overshadowing the weak light of the lamp on her nightstand, calling to Alex like a beacon.

It can’t be Nic; as far as he’s concerned, she’s a good little insomniac who turns off her phone at ten, just like Doctor Bernier told her to. It probably isn’t Amalia; Nic wouldn’t let her risk waking Alex up. It could be her mother, who occasionally forgets that her daughter lives in a different time zone even after all these years.

It could be her mother with bad news, or an anonymous source with a tip, or maybe it _is_ Nic, sending her an SOS after getting himself into a TANIS-related emergency.

See, this is why she doesn’t turn off her phone.

Alex sets aside her book (back to paperbacks now that she’s stuck with a Kindle curfew) and reaches for her phone with only a fleeting thought for Doctor Bernier and the strained smile she flashes whenever she’s disappointed in Alex.

It’s from Strand.

 _We need to talk_.

She should’ve seen that one coming. Strand landed in Seattle yesterday, and things have been hectic enough that she hasn’t been able to speak to him in private since he briefed her on the Amalia situation.

There’s no way they’re talking over the phone (not with Strand convinced that Daeva Corp. is listening; _it’s not a question of whether they’re capable of it,_ he’d hissed at her last week, _merely whether or not they’d want to_ ). The thought of getting out of her pajamas, putting on real clothes and then driving (in the dark, when the shadows seem to twist and curl and _reach_ ) to his hotel doesn’t really appeal to Alex.  

Besides, they don’t have the best track record when it comes to her showing up at his hotel room late at night. (It’s not like she thinks something will happen, not like anything will ever happen again. But she’s not ready to prove herself right just yet.)

_Amalia’s gone for the night. Do you still have my address?_

She’s not giving him any say in this but if Strand wants to meet at eleven on a weekday to discuss his conspiracy theories and pull her even deeper into his web of lies, he can damn well meet her halfway.

He writes back almost immediately.

_I’ll be there in twenty minutes._

Twenty-three minutes later, there’s a knock on her front door.

“Hey,” She musters up some semblance of a smile, tired as she is, and steps aside to let him in.

“I’m sorry for the hour,” Strand watches her slide the lock back into place and doesn’t venture further into her apartment until she leads him to the living room.

Alex gestures for him to take a seat and waits until he decides on the left end of the couch before she settles into the right, leaving as much distance between them as possible. “It’s fine. Like you said: we need to talk. Alone.”

Strand nods and gets right to it. “Does Amalia suspect anything?”

“Only that I’ve gone off the deep end,” Alex mutters. “She thinks I’m too caught up in the hunt for answers and it’s clouding my judgment. But no, she doesn’t suspect anything about you,” She clarifies for Strand’s benefit.

“That’s understandable, I suppose.” Strand hesitates before he adds: “Again, thank you for doing this. I know it can’t be easy, to-”

“Lie to my friends? Let them call my integrity into question? Turn myself into a train wreck my peers can’t look away from?” She means for her voice to be light, had planned on pairing it with a grin that would let him know she’s exaggerating, but the words sound suspiciously familiar, an echo of the concerns she keeps banishing to the back of her mind. Needless to say, it doesn’t quite come across as the joke she’d meant for it to be.

“Alex.” Strand looks mildly horrified. She’s irrationally gratified by her ability to coax that kind of reaction from him - that’s definitely the sleep-deprivation talking.

“It’s fine,” She quickly dismisses his concerns, throws in a casual wave that allows her to bat at the ghost of her words until they evaporate. “I want you to get your answers – that’s all that matters right now. Nic and the others will understand once this is all over, once I let them in on this.” If she makes it that far without getting fired.

Just two weeks ago she’d turned her back on Strand and watched him get smaller in her rear-view mirror, choosing the Hochman case and the show over him and his particular brand of crazed, driven, all-consuming research. Now here she is, acknowledging the possibility of being fired and deciding that she’ll cross that bridge when she comes to it.

But she needs answers more than she needs her job. She needs to help Strand track down Thomas Warren and figure all of this out, she needs to know that this has nothing to do with Strand’s work, that Coralee is either alive or dead and nothing in between, that The Advocate is merely a profession and Howard Strand’s elusive Horn is just an artifact.

(The thought of the insufferable Richard Strand being right about everything brings her more comfort than it has any right to. But if Strand’s right about all of this, if it’s just a lawyer and just an artifact and just a dead wife and just some unrelated Tapes not solved _yet_ , then he could be right about it being just shadows and just insomnia and just apophenia.)

“Answers first,” Alex resolves out loud. “I’ll figure out the rest after that.”

The way Strand looks at her – like it’s only just occurred to him that something might be different, off, _wrong_ – has her shifting in her seat and hurrying the conversation along.

“So, who’s the striking blonde?” There’s a forced casualness, a hint of something she’s not even going to name because it’s ridiculous. (It takes a lot for Strand to call a woman striking.) “Is this you playing hard to get? Having me ‘leak’ a conversation about her?”

A part of her should be concerned by the fact that she now has a ‘do first, ask later’ policy when it comes to Strand’s requests. That same voice of reason should be screaming at her for putting her credibility on the line for him. She must’ve left that part of her behind the day she agreed to go along with his schemes and lie to her producers and her listeners.

“Well, I thought it might be more subtle than leaving her eleven calls.” 

If she squints, if she pictures him without the beard and the flannel and his glasses and his shoes, she can almost curl her fingers around the faded image of him in the morning, calling after her with a teasing comment about her childish behavior as she jumps out of bed and sprints into the bathroom to claim first shower - a wisp of a memory made almost tangible.

Her laugh is five seconds too late and a few decibels too loud.

“I don’t actually know who she is,” Strand admits. “I happened to notice that she’s present at most Daeva Corp. press conferences. It would appear that she is a member of Thomas Warren’s inner circle.”

“And if you can’t track down the man himself, this is the next best thing?”

“Exactly,” He nods. “But – as you’ve probably figured – she’s proven to be just as elusive. The auction is the only confirmed sighting of her I’ve managed to find. It was an exclusive event, hardly any media there. I don’t think she ever intended for anyone to know she was there. Hopefully, this will catch her interest.”

“So we’re setting a trap for Striking Blonde.” Alex muses. “Striking Blonde and Sexy James Bond. They make quite the pair, huh?”

That earns her a forceful exhale laced with amusement, a half-laugh she’s come to value as much as Nic’s subdued chuckle or her mother’s familiar giggle.

“I suppose,” Strand even adds in a slight smile for good measure, though it’s gone as soon as she notices it. “But there _is_ something familiar about her. Something in her eyes, maybe.” The thought seems to unsettle him; she suspects he’s dealing with more than the usual frustration of being unable to match a face to a name.

“Any pictures?” Alex asks.

Strand nods. “Two, actually.”

“And you wouldn’t happen to have them with you right now?”

“No.” He hesitates before going on to add: “I’m not actually here for work, Alex.”

That shouldn’t sound as ~~promising~~ foreboding as it does, shouldn’t make her angle her body toward him even as her eyes avoid his, betraying her interest even as she plays it casual. “Oh?”

“Nic,” Strand mirrors her shift so that they’re facing each other. “He mentioned something about you being out of sorts.”

She knows that Nic means well – he always does – but _why_ would he go to Strand, of all people? “Since when are you and Nic BFFs?” To be fair, he wouldn’t have any way of knowing that he’s undoing all of her hard work, dragging Strand back into her personal life just as she thinks she’s laid that chapter of their life to rest. If Nic were to ever find out… well, he’d probably have a heart attack over all the rules she’s violated. (Does this make her a hypocrite for snapping at him about Amalia?)

“BFFs?” Strand echoes questioningly.

“Yeah, best friends fo- you know what, it doesn’t matter,” Alex tells him. “Why is Nic talking to you about me anyway?”

If she didn’t know any better, she’d accuse Strand of fidgeting as he tugs at the cuff of his flannel shirt. “I asked him,” He admits, reluctantly meeting her eyes. “I apologize for bringing him into this but I wasn’t going to get any answers from you. Every time I try to ask about you-”

“Look who’s talking,” Alex mutters.

He clenches his jaw. “That is _not_ the same thing. This is personal, Alex. Every time I try to ask about your health, you somehow manage to evade the question – more often than not, by redirecting my own question at me.”

Alex shrugs. “Well, I’m not the one sleeping in his office and chasing after leads so-”

“You’ve placed my well-being above your own,” Strand points out disapprovingly. “You take me out for lunch and try to make sure I get enough rest even as you push aside a salad you barely touched and tell Nic you’ll catch up on sleep some other time. This isn’t okay, Alex.”

She can feel herself flushing under the heat of his eyes, feeling a child all over again. He’s saying _you need to take care of yourself too_ but all she hears is _you don’t need to look out for me anymore_. It feels like a reminder, an accusation hurled at her for being the one who can’t move on. “Don’t flatter yourself, Doctor Strand,” She retorts. “I place everyone’s well-being above my own.”

Strand doesn’t take the bait, refuses to let her distract him once again.

“Nic also told me about the chanting.”

“Of course he did,” Alex mutters, weighing the pros and cons of coming clean to Nic versus letting Nic unknowingly push Strand back into her life. “I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s just stress? My mind struggling to let go of work and shut down at night, my subconscious taking a madwoman and her demon incantations way too seriously?”

“I suppose it could be all of those things,” Strand concedes, inching closer by almost-imperceptible degrees, minute blink-and-you’ll-miss-it movements. “But I’m not particularly concerned by _why_ right now. What worries me is the effect it’s having on you, Alex. It doesn’t matter whether it’s stress or demons keeping you up at night. What matters is that it _is_ keeping you up.” His inch-by-inch movements add up, and suddenly he’s in the middle of the sofa, a good two feet closer than before.

The whole reason they agreed to leave this behind in Chicago was to _avoid_ personal complications, not to have him ambush her at eleven on a weeknight with this sudden concern for her.

“Alex… are you scared?”

“What’s there to be scared of?” She quips with false bravado, wishing she could do more than just fake Strand’s skepticism, wishing she could actually wear that skepticism the way he does and cloak herself in it at night. “It’s not like demons are real, right?”

“They don’t have to be real to keep you awake at night,” Strand points out quietly.

She feels her own fingertips tracing the heavy bags under her eyes without having consciously ordered her hands to move. Strand follows the movement with his eyes; from the corner of her eye, she sees his hands gather up fistfuls of flannel, as if to keep himself from reaching out to trace the bags with his own fingers.

“I’m a light sleeper.”

“I know,” Alex regrets the words the moment they leave her lips; it’s like watching a train wreck you set into motion: you started all of this, but there’s nothing you can do to stop it. “I remember.”

She remembers her phone beeping with a text from fellow early-bird Nic, remembers the rumble of Strand’s voice with her ear pressed to his chest, remembers muttering a quick apology and telling him to go back to sleep as she rolled over to silence her phone for another hour or two.

“Right.” It looks like Strand hasn’t forgotten either. He clears his throat and lets his eyes flit about her apartment for a minute or so before he settles on her once more. “What I meant to say was… you can leave your door open. I’ll take the couch. If I hear anything coming from your room, I’ll wake you up. If that’s alright with you, of course,” He quickly adds.

“Richard,” She wonders if she’s gaping at him, hopes her eyes aren’t bugged out like a goldfish’s. “That’s… I can’t ask you to do that. I mean-”

“Please. Let me do this for you.”

Once he reaches for the hand in her lap and laces their fingers together, there’s no hope for her. And with the way he’s looking at her, Alex can’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, this is as much for him as it is for her. For all she knows, it could be his new way of making up for his recent behavior.

Alex gives in with a sigh. “But I’m not letting you sleep on the couch,” She stipulates. “My bed’s big enough for the two of us and a pillow barrier, if that would make you more comfortable.” After all the times they’ve woken up curled around each other, the idea of fetching spare pillows and constructing a wall between them is nothing short of ridiculous.

“That won’t be necessary,” Strand tells her.

She shrugs. “Okay. Bedroom’s through that door, bathroom’s down the hall. I’ll give you some time to get ready for bed. Do you want a shirt or something?”

He tells her he’s fine with the tee shirt underneath his flannel, and disappears into the bathroom. She meanders around the apartment, straightening up the occasional pile of books or mail, rounding up a mug and two plates that she quickly rinses out in the kitchen. By the time she shuts the bedroom door behind her, Strand is shrugging off his shirt. He folds that, along with his pants, and she gestures for him to leave them on her dresser.

They slip into their respective sides of the bed, and Alex switches off the lamp on her nightstand while Strand pulls up the covers. She whispers a quiet _good night, Richard,_ he murmurs _sleep well, Alex_ and they go to sleep with an invisible pillow barrier between them.

She stares at her ceiling for the longest time, struck by the realization that this is the first time they’re sharing a bed to just… sleep.

Her lips tremble; she doesn’t know if she’s holding back a smile or keeping in a cry.

 

 

 

“It’s 2:04 in the morning. I’m awake, of course. God, this is so frustrating. I just… I guess I thought tonight would be different. I didn’t fall asleep until midnight, so I really, really need to get back to sleep somehow. Doctor Bernier says that if I can’t switch off my mind, maybe it’s best to let all of the thoughts out. Mentally exhausting myself to the point where I black out, I guess. I’m not actually sure what woke me up this time but TANIS has been on my mind since I got up for some reason, so I’ll start with that. The season finale’s this week. I know Nic’s pretty nervous about it. There were a lot of questions when they first found him, but Cameron Ellis and the people he works for managed to shut that down pretty quickly-”

“Alex?”

“Hey. Did I wake you up? Sorry, I thought you wouldn’t hear me from all the way-”

“I felt you leaving the bed.”

“Oh.”

“What are you doing?”

“It’s, um, supposed to be a sleep journal? I record these little notes when I can’t sleep, then I write them down in the morning. It helps. I think.”

“What time is it?”

“A little over two.”

“… come back to bed, Alex. Please.”

“But I… okay. Just give me a minute.”

“One minute.”

“It’s 2:11 A.M. I’m going to try to get some more sleep. Note to self: delete this recording.”

 

 

 

“Alex,” She wakes to warm hands running up and down her arms, a soothing, measured motion to help her ground herself in the moment. “Alex, wake up.”

“What-”

She blinks until Strand’s concerned eyes come into focus. “You were chanting,” He informs her gently, slowing his movements until his hands come to a stop, his fingers brushing her shoulders.

Fear curls around her heart in smoky tendrils, like unnaturally long fingers of a shadow demon. Every breath sounds impossibly loud, every strangled inhale forces its way down her throat until her eyes burn with tears, with exhaustion, with terror.

“Richard,” She finally manages to choke out.

“It’s okay,” He murmurs, sliding back into place next to her, invisible pillow barrier long since forgotten. She focuses on her breathing as Strand tugs the covers back up over the both of them and pulls her to his side.

Somewhere in the part of her mind that’s trying to focus on anything other than demon names and accidental summonings, she finds old memories swimming to the surface, buoyed by the familiar life jacket of his low voice weaving a blanket of _it’s just apophenia_ and _demons aren’t real_ and _I’m here, Alex_ for her to wrap herself up in.

She closes her eyes and pretends they’re somewhere on the road, in a remote hotel no one would think to track them down to, safe from demons and coffee thieves and reality.

 

 

 

The next time she wakes up, it’s morning.

**Author's Note:**

> I might write a short morning-after scene for Tumblr; check back in a day or two for a link in the notes.
> 
> I didn't intend for this to be a regular thing but I've now written one fic per episode for the last three episodes. And now that this is going to be canon-divergent, I've got a whole lot more freedom to work with so... we'll see if there's more where this came from.


End file.
